This week I made a spontaneous trip to New York City to visit my sister for some Christmas celebrations, and we were joined by my brother from London. Yesterday, about this time, we were ice-skating in Central Park, which really doesn’t have anything to do with my sermon, I just wanted to boast.

On our way to Central Park, we were on the subway and were joined by 400 Santas. They were all dressed up as Santas and Grinches and Elves and having a very jolly day. It was a Santa Claus convention; they convened downtown, got on the subway to go uptown, and none of them knew where they were going. They were just waiting for the signal, “Santa off!” They would then pile out and go on to the next stage of their journey. It was just so much fun to be on the subway crammed packed with 400 Santa Clauses, all singing and joking and having a merry time.

Eventually we got to Central Park and began ice-skating. You need to understand that I have not gone ice-skating since I was a very young child. At first I was becoming “one with the ice” many times. I was clutching the wall and edging around the ice rink. Eventually I began to get the hang of it, and then I was all style. Well, at least I didn’t break anything.

We went from 400 Santas on the subway to 4000 people on the ice rink. These 4000 people created what I can only describe as an apocalyptic scene. There were small children falling down, and grown adults tumbling over the top of them. It was complete bedlam- as people were going down, they began to see stars, and visions, and have dreams. We can only imagine what types of hallucinations were taking place on that ice. It made me wonder what apocalyptic visions and hallucinations have in common.

Apocalypse; Hallucination or Prophecy

This is a typical apocalyptic scene: A person wakes up in the morning, walks to the window and draws the curtains. What they see outside the window is a very eerie scene of hushed silence. A sulphurous stench covers the street. There are buildings burning to the ground all around their home. The sidewalks are paved with bodies. To one side, a rodent is gnawing on the corpse of one of their neighbors.

Terrified, the person runs to the bathroom and looks in the mirror. What looks back at them is another corpse; a face with no eyes, just holes where the eyes used to be. The person tries to scream, but no sound will come out of their mouth.

This is not an uncommon vision for someone who is suffering an acute schizophrenic breakdown to describe to a doctor. Is it really happening? Is it a dream, or is it a hallucination? Most doctors would say that this is a sign of a breakdown, but Carl Jung had a different explanation:

This is a brief summary of Jung’s psychological theory. Within each of us there is a conscious world and an unconscious world. Our unconscious world is full of symbols, images, and archetypes. The messages that form our words, thoughts and actions flow from the unconscious to the conscious. There is a constant flow between the two. That can be considered the flow from the ego to the self, or the integration of our common sense to our lived lives. What Jung said is happening for the person having a breakdown is that there is a blockage between their conscious and unconscious worlds, and the person is living without a strong sense of who they are. They are living as a divided self.

So here is where it relates to the apocalyptic scene. The hallucination takes place not as a sign of a disease, but rather as the body’s way of naturally re-integrating the divided self. The unconscious creates this extreme vision, capturing the confusion that the person feels at the time as part of the way the body can draw back together the unconscious and the conscious worlds.

That’s Jung’s theory, and he may or may not be right. But it is interesting for us to look at the book of Revelation in this regard. The writer of Revelation begins by saying that he is writing “in the spirit.” We have to stop and wonder what this means. I wonder how you make sense of that phrase? Is “the spirit” the unconscious world beyond our control? Is “the spirit” some external force working through us? Or could “the spirit” be the integration of the unconscious and the conscious? Would a person “in the spirit” be living an inspired life, in which their words and actions grow so naturally out of their symbolic inner world?

The Book of Revelation as Hallucination

Let me speak a bit about the book of Revelation. It was most likely written by a man named John, who was imprisoned on the island of Patmos. He was imprisoned because he had resisted the empire. He refused to bow down to the emperor. He refused to do so because he saw the way of empire as being opposed to the way of Jesus.

From this position of crisis and turmoil, John described an inner apocalypse, his isolation, fear and an unknown future. In this trauma, he tries to come to terms with his divided self. The book of Revelation, therefore, is a hallucination that represents John’s reintegration of his unconscious and conscious worlds.

John writes to seven churches, to give them an account of his hallucinations. The seven churches were in the seven regions where emperor worship was enforced. These seven churches were facing a divided situation in which the emperor was forcing them to bow down to a system that was completely opposed to their faith, which was passed down to them and based on the life of Jesus. These seven churches were in turmoil, just as John was, trying to come to terms with how they could live “in the spirit” while the emperor was telling them to live in a way that was opposed to their own unconscious symbols.

The message John gives to these seven churches is one that is deeply personal because it grows out of his own experience. What he wants to tell these churches is this: Quietly persist in the face of enormous suffering. Quietly persist when all seems to be lost. Don’t give in to domination. Don’t give in when the empire seems to be telling you to give up what you hold to be true.

There are four main messages that John gives the seven churches in the book of Revelation. The first is that life is tough. The only way through life is to go through it. The second is that at the point of greatest despair, when we feel that we cannot go on, that is the moment of opportunity in which we can open up for moments of profound transformation. The third message John gives is to resist the empire. Do not be seduced by the empire. The fourth is that the heroes are the ones that quietly do not give up. They just gently persist through life when all seems to be lost.

Life is Tough- Go Through it

Life is tough, and we all know that to be true. The only way to deal with life when it is tough is to go through it. You can’t go around it, you can’t go over it, and you can’t go under it. Does that sound familiar? Have you told your children and grandchildren the nursery rhyme about a bear hunt?

When they come to certain challenges or struggles in the journey – a patch of mud, long grass, or a mountain, they can’t go around it, under it, or over it, they have to go through it. When you go through tough times you will stumble and trip, but you will get up and keep going through it. The only way we can go through the struggles of life is to go through them. So often we try to go over life, under it, or around it. Sometimes we do this in very obvious ways such as straight-out denial of how tough life is, but sometimes we do it in more subtle ways.

One way that we try to go around suffering is when we try to over-analyze how we got to this point. When we do this, we wind up living in the past. We create a whole new world of suffering for ourselves, rather than simply being in the suffering that we have. Just allow yourself to be sad. There is no reason why you have to analyze every step that led you there.

Similarly, we try to go around suffering by projecting into the future. We project that the future will be a happy time. One day we will escape this suffering. Or else we imagine that because of this suffering the future is going to be even worse. By focusing on what will happen in the future, we go around the suffering that we have right now, the only moment that exists, and the one we need to immerse ourselves in. So the first message in the book of Revelation is that the only way to get through suffering is to go through it.

Psycho pomps and Transformations

The second message is that at that point of certain despair, at the very brink of death, we face a moment of opportunity. We have a profound opportunity at that point to break open. In this open state we can reorganize our inner world, in the midst of the apocalypse, in a way to give us the courage to keep going.

In religious tradition there is something called a “psycho pomp”. It is a strange word, but it explains the experience where saints or angels guide the deceased to eternal life. It is often symbolized with animals or with particular saints or angels, and the deceased will be guided on that journey from death to eternal life. If you think about the psycho pomp from Carl Jung’s perspective, then the psycho pomp is that angel-like guide that takes us from the unconscious to the conscious world. It is the guide that brings us from the brink of death to the moment of transformation. It could be a person or it could be a situation.

Let me tell you about a couple of psycho pomps that we have experienced in our world over the last few years. The first was Y2K. Do you remember the Y2K fiasco? I found that humorous because everyone in America was terribly anxious about what would happen, even after the year 2000 had already arrived in Australia, and everything was fine. It’s like the Charles Schultz quote- "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia." A whole lot of irrational fear arose around the Y2K bug, but something very positive also emerged. It was like a psycho pomp, where we came to terms with our fear about the predicted apocalypse and had a wonderful opportunity to reorganize our inner worlds

9/11 was another psycho pomp. Isn’t it interesting that we put numbers on all of these significant moments in history? 9/11, Y2K, 666, and consider all the other numerology that occurs throughout the book of Revelation. 9/11 was an event when people around the world came to a moment of crisis and opened themselves up to new compassion and new growth. They reorganized their inner worlds in a way that began to make sense, so they could quietly and persistently move forward. All the events that came before 9/11 and after 9/11 created a psycho pomp for so many of us. How many people say that 9/11 was a moment of crisis in which their life turned around? New openness, new courage, new growth.

The writer of the book of Revelation had his own psycho pomps. He had the angels and voices that spoke to him in t hallucinations. He had the animals and various other symbols that came to him as strength and vision to move on. So John, the writer, had is own moments of transformation.

Do Not be Seduced by Empire

The next message from the book of Revelation is to not be seduced by empire. John seemed to be very cynical about the Roman empire. That is one reason he sent the message to the seven churches; to warn them and encourage them. He reminded them that the empire’s way is the way of war, while Jesus’ way is a way of non-violence. While the empire’s way is a way of expansion no matter what the cost, Jesus’ way was a way of growth and abundance from the inside out. While the empire’s way is to get rich first and foremost, Jesus’ way is that it is more important how we treat the poor. So the way of the empire was completely opposed to the way of Jesus. John tells the seven churches to not be seduced, but he also encourages them.

While the Roman Empire was long lasting and fearsome, John felt it was sowing the seeds of its own destruction. Its path of expansion was unsustainable. Conquest leads to violence and complex power relations emerge. What goes around, comes around.

What does this say to empires in today’s world? Its been said that empires don’t last as long as they used to. The complexity of international relationships now means that seeds of destruction are harvested more quickly than before. War breeds war. In an empire, the insatiable drive to expand internationally, so often leads to the loss of a national identity or vision and a national recession. The use of fear in the media that is controlled by the empire leads to increased insecurity amongst the people. Fear leads to a scarcity mentality.

So there is a warning to not be seduced by empire, but also a recognition that empires bring about their own downfall. Their appetite for violence becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. The Book of Revelation doesn’t call for the downfall of Empire. It simply points to the reality of the demise of empire. If we patiently resist falling for its ideology and refuse to be seduced by it, it will self correct in time.

Heroes are the Quiet Persistence Ones

The fourth teaching out of the book of Revelation is that the heroes are the ones who quietly and persistently take one step at a time in the face of struggle. There is a Greek word used in Revelation 1;9 that simply means “quiet resistance to domination.” The heroes are not the saviors of the world. The heroes are not the lords of lords and kings of kings. The heroes are not the super human ones that are unbreakable. They are the ones who go deep within and touch their own pain. Out of that pain and despair, they quietly and persistently get up and move on. After a night of bad dreams, they get up, and they function. They take one step after another, and they keep going.

This Community’s Apocalypse

You know that is true because you have done it yourself. You’ve had those nighttimes of despair and gotten up in the morning to do what you had to do. You have people around you today that have done the same thing, the heroes in your life who quietly and persistently refuse to give up. This community knows what I’m talking about. In September I stood before you and presented what was a moment of great crisis for this community. I suggested to you that we were very close to death. We were so close to the point of no return. The response from the community acted like a psycho pomp for me. What I saw was a group of individuals giving their lives, talents, and treasures in the service of a vision, this thing that we stand for, this quiet persistence and resistance of a domination system.

What I have seen is people giving sacrificially of themselves and of their money. I’ve seen people go within and reorganize their inner world as a result of the fear of the end of a vision. And, having reorganized their inner world, finding the strength, courage and inspiration to carry on and create a future for our organization. I’ve been so inspired to see that. I want to thank you, and I want you to congratulate yourselves for this past year. An astounding thing has happened. And you have been part of it. You are the ones who have created a new opportunity out of a moment of fear and despair. You should congratulate yourselves the way I do, and the way Bishop and Christine Spong did last weekend, when they came here and said that we have the most amazing group of lay-leaders that they have ever seen in the world. They saw what I am describing to you - a community that will not give up, that keeps functioning, that keeps taking one step after another.

I want to ask you to support this organization one more time for 2006. If we have a good end of year campaign in the next two weeks, this organization can end 2006 just as strongly as you have undertaken the whole year. I want to ask you to ask yourself what level of support you can give the church in the next two weeks above your regular pledge. For some of you that may mean $1000, $100, or $50. But I want to ask every one of us to consider what we can give above our pledge as a sign that 2006 is the moment of transformation, that this is the beginning of a wonderful future and you are part of that. Consider making one more pledge for 2006 so we can begin 2007 on a good footing and move forward with audacity; without trembling, knowing that we have a vision that many, many people need to be a part of.

What’s the vision of this community? The vision is that each of us may go deep within and touch our pain. As we touch our pain we touch the pain of those around us, and the pain of the world. And simply be there. Be with the pain and go through it. Don’t avoid it, don’t go around it, go through it. At the moment when we feel we cannot go on, at the moment of utter despair, we re-organize our inner world in a way that brings courage and strength to persist, quietly and gently resisting domination. With this inner clarity, we will not be seduced by empire. Growth will be an inner reality, first and foremost.

Finally, find the hero within yourself. You have within you all the resources that you could possibly need, if you would just look deep within, touch the pain and feel the courage.

I want to know about your pain, and I want you to know mine. I only ask of you that you don’t sugar coat it, and I won’t mine. If you can’t put words on the pain, then I wonder if we can meet in each other’s dreams and see the pain up close and personal. I wonder if we can be for each other companions in the pain that passes all understanding, and walk with each other as we travel to the very brink of broken heartedness. At this place, there is no expectation of better times to come, just a fortitude that if it needs to get worse before it gets better, that even that we will survive together. We never need be alone in this place of despair. In community we walk together, no matter what. Actions of quiet gentle persistence. That’s the vision.